Questions tagged [creature-design]
For questions regarding the viability of a life-form design. These questions should focus on biologically plausible creatures.
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Which limbs should be retained or lost to turn this land animal into a swimmer?
The form of large swimming animals is fairly consistent across distantly related groups. As example, all aquatic mammals, save the quadrupedal semiaquatic forms, have adapted for a fish-like shape ...
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What common feature would be found across land dwelling organisms on a planet like Mars? [closed]
What would a typical ecosystem on this planet look like? More specifically, what features(lungs, hands, glands) would be most common among species? Plants and animals alike?
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How might this creature evolve a biological gun
I recently started to wonder how an animal could evolve a gun. So I decided that here was the best place to find people that are smarter and/or have different ideas than me.
This creature has an ...
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Realistic icthyocentaur [closed]
Icthyocentaurs are featured in some Greek art as a mermaid centaur combo. I haven't heard anything about what they can do, but they're clearly good swimmers. I'm not interested in how they could ...
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Would my giants still have a functioning appendix?
In my world, there is a species from the Homo genus named Homo gigas. They are commonly called giants.
They are as massive as polar bears, and they never stop growing like kangaroos.
They have seal-...
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Atmospheric density for sky jellyfish?
My setting I've been working on for the past few years has giant floating creatures (I know, very original) that the local sapients often live on like sky islands, maybe cultivating some kind of ...
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Is it possible for a race of alien humanoids to evolve a diet based of semen?
On this planet there are two species of alien humanoids creatures , one group evolved an omnivore based diet and the other has a semen based diet, both groups are bipedal and share a common ancestor.
...
user103236
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What would life be like that uses liquid nitrogen as a solvent instead of water? [closed]
I'm working on a worldbuilding project and want to have an intelligent species from a planet where liquid nitrogen is the dominant solvent, not water. I plan on building the planet backwards from here ...
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Which animals are closest to a large upright boar monster that can mimic human speech?
If you’ve seen any of my previous questions about Algennon’s monsters, then you’ll be glad to know we’ve stopped talking about simple mollusk monsters. Now we can talk about cool monsters that have ...
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Wing positioning for this hexapodal wyvern-like creature?
Which pair of limbs should the wings be attached to for this bio-engineered creature? (A or B) The creature itself does not have a set weight and is built to fight other similarly sized creatures. It ...
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Carbon planet gardens [closed]
This is a restart of my previous question: let's say there was a carbon planet with life. That means it would use hydrocarbons as a solvent and since the molecules are more complicated, all reactions ...
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How effective would this spider's technique be in getting it food/shelter(for its young)/transportation/protection?
So I have this idea for this unique species of jumping spider.
Basically it is around a foot long/medium sized hat size and has pretty big fangs for its size. It jumps on to people's heads and uses ...
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Knocking Out Zombies
So basically we have zombies. And they are not just normal zombies... they are walking human corpses reanimated by slime molds growing around their bones! The zombies are moved around like puppets by ...
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What kind of world could have humanoid size spiders
It is a classic RPG trope to have the humanoid adventurers battle some spiders that are roughly the same size as the humanoids or even a good deal bigger. There are a number of questions about giant ...
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Could a desert animal recycle ammonia into protein to avoid urinating?
Could a desert animal, with the right symbiotic microbes, avert the need to urinate by creating ammonia and having bacteria in its blood/kidneys convert it into nitrate and then back into amino acids? ...
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Boss attacks for a purple worm [closed]
I am making a boss fight themed quest in Dungeons and Dragons, and I am having trouble coming up with "Boss Attacks" that would be physically possible as well as add diversity to the purple ...
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How would my zombies locate victims?
My world has zombies that are created as a result of infection with a symbiotic organism consisting of a bacterium in symbiosis with another eukaryotic organism, essentially somewhat like a lichen. ...
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How successful could rapidly spreading new predator be in world with today's type of development
I was rewatching Secret war from Love, Death & Robots and started wondering, would the monsters from that episode pose any actual threat in today's world?
Let's assume the monsters have similar ...
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How my species powers work? [closed]
My species live in a planet which was like prehistoric earth where dinosaur lived. My species name was trialsapien. The bones on the arms of evolved trialsapien become kinetically charged and ...
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Why would dyadic cisgender women with facial hair be considered attractive? [closed]
In my world, there is a revolution in the world of fashion: women, men, non-binary people, and genderfluid people all must have facial hair if they want to be among the elite models. To be exact, men ...
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Which animals are closest to a squid monster that mimics humans and other animals?
Welcome back to Algennon, where monsters, old feuds between the Five Peoples, and internal political strife mean that heroes are always needed. This is another question about the feasibility of a ...
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What would a anatomically correct bipedal wolf look like? [duplicate]
In the movie Kung Fu Panda 2, we see the main villain Lord Shen having several bipedal wolves as his soldiers.
I was wondering if we to engineer an anatomically correct bipedal wolf species, what ...
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Could a biological organism have organs that perceive entropy?
A biology textbook I once read described humans and other organisms as "moving zones of low entropy", referring to the fact that our bodies display a high level of organization and ...
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Hydrostatic skeletons on a low gravity world
So I'm working on an inhabited planet with around half the gravity of Earth (assume everything else is the same, just the gravity differs). While thinking about what kinds of terrestrial creatures ...
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Social implication of lion-people living with normal humans and how to make them into free folk and not slaves while maintaing their role as defenders [closed]
Lion-people are kidnapped at birth from humans. Why?
Because Lion-folk prey on humans as a form of sport and entertainment
Kidnapped cubs of lion-folk are groomed in ''loving'' families in order to ...
user100394
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Would it be biologically possible to have a species that use a photochromic material instead of an iris to control light intensity?
So in real life there is glasses that use photochromic lens to adapt to the light intensity
Would it be biologically possible to have a species that use a photochromic material instead of an iris to ...
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How to make chocolate safe for Keidran? (Basically Dog-people)
Backstory (skip if desired)
Let's take our cute and self-conscious protagonist, Jayden! (For the people that read and responded to the post about the genetics behind keidran and the colonization of ...
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Can a creature have an endoskeleton of chitin and silica?
I've been doing research for the worldbuilding of my planet and I'm going back to design the details of the basic body plan for all creatures. I was interested on using something different than Earth'...
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What kind of material could tooth enamel be made out of to change the tooth colour besides iron?
The world I'm making isn't hard science fiction nor science fiction, really, but I'd like to be somewhat realistic in some aspects, like this one.
I'd like my humanoid fantasy/alien species to have ...
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What do you call fishing on a planet where there are no fish? [closed]
When Plato gave Socrates the definition of man as “featherless bipeds,” Diogenes found and plucked a chicken and brought the poor creature into Plato's Academy, placed it on the ground and announced, “...
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Could this alien species of scorpion lemurs exist?
I’m working on a third-person shooter game within my sci-fi Safespace setting. The plot isn’t complete, but basically this training robot named Obby is reprogrammed to be a Mechanid (robot with free ...
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Dragon people with colorful horns
Dragonfolk have skin that looks like rock, but sometimes, some of them turn colorful with very bright horns for the same reason salmon turn from grey to red, while others are always bright and colored....
user100394
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Feasibility of an Electric Land Slime
My fantasy world of Algennon has several “Pudding” class monsters-(one of which is the Peasouper) -slimy slug creatures with natural weapons. One type is the Licorice Pudding. This monster has ...
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Could an alien creature plausibly detect human magnetic fields?
I am designing an alien species that evolved to use magnetoreception to aid in navigation on its homeworld in a manner similar to some terrestrial animals. What would it take for an alien creature ...
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Would compound-like eyes that gave a "pixelated" image be possible/practical
The title is horribly worded, but I have no idea how to otherwise title it.
Basically, the idea behind these special eyes is that they would be structured much like real-life compound eyes, but the ...
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How can bonobo that evolved sapience maintain their 'conflict resolution' strategy without risking spreading of STIs?
If humans die out tomorrow the two most likely candidates to achieve sapience after us are our closest genetic relatives. One of these, chimpanzee, has been discussed quite thoroughly in stories such ...
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What mount would work best in a desert setting as a cavalry animal?
The story I’m currently writing, is in a fantasy desert setting. It’s gonna be focused on world and city building so obviously the army is gonna play a big role. The technology of the world is based ...
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What sort of evolutionary possibilities are plausible for a human-like species orbiting a red dwarf star?
I'm working on a story which is sci-fi so soft you could spread it on a cracker, but I'd like something semi plausible. I'm very likely overthinking things to an extreme, but I'd like someone with ...
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Is it possible for a living being to be made up of dark matter, neutrinos or similar other particles that don't interact with regular matter? [closed]
What I have in mind is a species of creature that are made up of particles that do not interact with base matter, though unlike true dark matter they can interact with themselves. Would this be ...
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Leg structure in a shallow sea world [closed]
I am currently building an alien planet that is based around a creative drawing exercise, where I drew an alien with different bug like features. They are bipedal humanoids, but along with other ...
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Can my Pea Soup Slime Monster Exist?
Peasoupers are acidic, bright green slime monsters that smell a lot like snap pea jelly (I assume, I’ve never smelled snap pea jelly). They are deaf, but can see, taste and feel. On average, ...
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How to calculate the strength of fictional creatures when creating them or at least be precise and believable?
Strength sports and world records seem to not be relieable measurments for upper limits of humanoid strength since in most sports what was back then a world record level amount of strength and ...
user99879
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What catalyst would make redtail catfish rise from the rivers and lakes and gain sentience? [closed]
so, writing up a post-apocalyptic fantasy world where humanity has left Earth and all it's cities and factories and farms behind, and, due to unknown catalyst, a race of amphibious humanoid catfish ...
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Thermotrophy: An open-ended question [closed]
Something I've been thinking about recently is the viability of thermotrophic organisms - that is, organisms that are able to obtain energy by absorbing heat, and then - by some mechanism or process - ...
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Does prey necessarily have to be bigger than predator when it comes to larger animals?
I am trying to create various fictional animals and monsters to inhabit my world. Many of the animals I am creating are huge, and some are even bigger than elephants. Some of these include the ...
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Mobile sentient plant-like species [closed]
I know similar questions are asked a lot and it's okay if you'll just send me to where my question is already answered, but i couldn't find clear answer if exactly what i need is possible.
So. I need ...
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How Could Bioluminescence work as a Flashlight?
So I have a Koosh-like organism which uses bioluminescence. I've recently realized that there aren't really any organisms on earth which can direct their bioluminescence into a flashlight-like beam (...
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Anatomic design of a 10m tall humanoid that procreates by "splitting"
I'm currently trying to work out how a newly discovered species would work anatomically. It is extremely tall (10 to 15 meters) and has humanoid shape (head with eyes, arms, legs), but it is not a ...
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Is it feasible for a quadrupedal species to walk on hooves and hands?
I was working on a chimerical creature with the back legs of a goat and a ape’s upper body when the question occurred to me-how would this beast even walk? I tried looking to mythology for the answer.
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Could a creature adjust its height using this system?
So I had an idea for a vaguely humanoid creature called Krah (which I will post more questions about in time), and one of its many horrifying bodily functions is an ability I call “loathsome limbs”. ...
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